Play Book Tag discussion

Dirty Harry [McCoy] , Glasgow version cc. 1974, fourth book in the series

‘Sure it’s just a bit of blood and guts, Harry. You must be used to it by now?’
‘Getting there,’

This fourth episode starts quite explosively, with the victim splashed all over the walls of his apartment, apparently while trying to assemble a homemade explosive device. Even experienced coppers like Harry McCoy might get queasy at the sight, but let’s not lose focus on the real important questions:

“Who on earth is going to set off a bomb in Woodlands?”

I’ve read the book in April, as the title suggests, and as I did with the previous three monthly installments, but I’m still laying catch-up in the review department. The series still has a strong momentum, enough to make me reconsider my plan of reading one book per year. As with other similar modern noir offers, most of the appeal comes from the main character and from the setting, but Alan Parks is talented enough to pay attention to secondary characters, to pacing and to the build-up towards a spectacular finale – the stuff that usually gets your franchise picked up by a streaming service. I might be interested in watching an adaptation of the books done by the Scots [or Brits] in shorter six episode seasons, like the recent Slow Horses, or Peaky Blinders.

He was getting tired of it all. He was thirty-odd, living in a shitty flat by himself, career didn’t seem to be going anywhere, already marked as a loner. Drinking too much. Even had a bloody ulcer now for his trouble.

Harry McCoy does not sound very original when you hear about him – just your typical case of work burnout, failed marriage and drinking problems – but there is something special for me in the delivery of his lines and in his existential musings. It’s not only the bleakness or the Glaswegian dialect. I think it’s his strong sense of right and wrong, even when Harry is breaking the rules or consorting with his criminal pals, like Stevie Cooper.